means A portable personal computer that folds shut like a clamshell, combining screen, keyboard, and battery into a single unit you can use on your knees or a table.

from A transparent English compound: "lap" (the flat surface your thighs make when you sit) plus "top," coined in the early 1980s to distinguish these new fold-up machines from the immovable "desktop." "Lap" itself is an old Germanic word — the loose fold or hanging flap of a garment — which over centuries came to mean the seated body's cradle, the very spot these computers were named to occupy. They were briefly called "laptops" in contrast to "luggables," the suitcase-sized portables that came before.